


Neither Wrong Nor Right

by etherati



Category: Watchmen
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Character Study, Missing Scene, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Karnak, Post-Roche, Pre-GN, Pre-Roche, Unresolved Sexual Tension, collection, gn!verse, movie!verse, the usual canon ouchies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 13,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherati/pseuds/etherati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets, microfics and drabbles set in the canon WM!verse or some approximation thereof. New additions: Among Ruins, in which Rorschach keeps protecting his friend and his city after Karnak. Half a World Away, in which Dan uses Archie's long range flight capabilities to prove what a good friend he is. Unsinkable, in which we watch a decade fall and rise from Dan's POV. Vision, in which Dan has to relearn how to see, after Keene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Many and varied topics, most written from prompts.  
> Chapter 1 prompt: 'pickiest DT'  
> Characters: Eddie, Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: Eddie quits drinking.

*

'No drinking at meetings', the bastard says, all clean-cut and collegiate under the sharp beak of his mask, sucking up to the goddamned teacher like this were some game, some popularity contest. Sucking up or just trying to get a dig in, but he doubts it; doubts the kid even understands the value of a well-placed verbal boot-to-the-ribs in this world of grab what's yours and what's the other guy's too, if you can. Too young, too soft, so he laughs; same way he laughs at everything.

No way in_ hell_ does he expect anyone to follow up on it; to keep the jabs coming and, when they fail to elicit a response other than more barking laughter and a flash of silver as the flask tipped up again, to start in with the pity. Whispered asides: he's sick, he can't help it. Sideways glances. Shifting silences. It’s a goddamned conspiracy, some stupid social engineering bullshit cooked up by Ozy the great, he’s sure of it. He roped them all in and it’s like amateur psychiatric theater and they’re making way bigger fools of themselves than they’re making of him, by a long shot.

That’s it. That settles it.

So he isn't entirely sure why the sharp reflection off of the flask gives him pause finally, flashing in the overhead lights. Maybe he’s coming down with something, some nasty bug he picked up from the shitscum he put his fists through last night, and his body knows even if his brain doesn't that cheap gin isn't the best addition to the equation right now. Maybe it’s because it’s eight in the goddamned morning, and that actually_ is_ just a little screwed-up.

Doesn’t matter, because he isn't a weak, sick, poor victim of society, drinking away the hours because his mommy didn't love him enough. He drinks and smokes and swears and fucks anyone he feels like because he wants to, because it’s good and fun and it makes people uncomfortable, makes people start to see the absurdity of taking _anything_ seriously, through the cracks he puts in their worldview. They're like stupid kids peeking through their fingers at the monsters on the screen; put it in front of them and they'll always _look_.

No, he can stop whenever he wants to; he just doesn't particularly want to.

But for some reason, at eight AM on some random Tuesday - he _thinks_ it’s a Tuesday, anyway - well. He doesn't exactly want to. But he’s curious about what’ll happen.

He doesn't have anything to prove.

But he's curious.

*

Four days. Four goddamned days, and he’s almost willing to admit it - admit that the shit has its claws into him, if it’ll just make the fucking shakes stop, the shakes and the sweats and the nausea and the stupid owl fucker is standing over him, blood spattered up his arm. It’s swimming like some dark cloud of vengeance and any minute, it’s going to detach from the other man and leap onto him and start crawling down his throat. The back of his head hurts; feels like he's been bashing it into the asphalt over and over again.

The owl shouts something indistinct over his shoulder. He can feel the impact through the ground when the last body hits, and then the blotfaced kid is there too, at Owly's shoulder like a goddamned lapdog. There’s more blood on the kid, and he starts to feel outnumbered, overwhelmed. It’s something like drowning, but thicker and uglier, more helpless.

Owlface crouches down, confusion and disgust all over his face, under that sharp beak that could probably devour him but he isn’t sure and you have to be _sure_ about these things. The words make sense this time: "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Drugs, he’s probably thinking, with that sweet-faced boyscout outrage. Some fucked-up cocktail, hallucinations and delusions and shakes and the whole package. Be nice if it were, then it'd actually wear off.

"S'a matter?" he finally drawls out, and he can feel the idiotic grin across his face, like fingers tugging at rubber sheeting, catching and dragging. "Thought you _wanted_ me sober."

The disgust breaks up into shock, and _this,_ he realizes triumphantly through the haze, is why he did this. This reaction. This is the punchline: the self-righteous indignation dissolving into something that _hurts_ the bastard to feel. It’s like breaking something precious and it feels wonderful.

"Picky bastard," he mutters, still grinning, before he finally passes out.

*


	2. Only Makes Us Stronger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: '17,000 queued'  
> Characters: Dan  
> Summary: Post-squidding, Dan waits.

*****

Another early morning, another cold morning – breath freezes midair and frost rimes along the graceful arcs of electrical cables where they hang, heavy and tired and useless, between buildings.

It's Dan who squints up through the web of them, tracing the track of airplanes cutting through the predawn sky – bypassing them, all flights redirected to Logan and Newark and Buffalo – Dan who pulls his coat more tightly around himself, fighting off a chill that sits hard in the bones.

It's Nite Owl, though – what’s left of the hero, inside the man who chose to give in – who feels righteously enraged that Adrian chose the early days of another unforgiving New York winter to pull off his plot. If killing half the city isn't bad enough – and it _is_, Veidt overshot as far as he's concerned, it's as bad as it needs to be and even that’s a grotesque understatement – stranding the other half without electricity or heat or a source of regular meals in the middle of November is just gratuitously cruel.

The line wanders over the landscape, easily over four miles long, weaving in and out of city blocks like a tremendous suffocating snake – edging forward on its belly by inches at a time. It's November 28th, fourth Thursday of the month, but that means nothing special this year; these people will be lucky to walk away with enough food to keep them going until tomorrow, never mind anything to be thankful for. The city is now defined not by tradition or independence or personal accountability but by waiting, endless waiting, more time spent standing in food lines and clothing lines and kerosene lines and medicine lines than doing anything else.

Waiting.

Dan's waiting for all of this to start making sense, for an epiphany to come and show him how to live with the secrets he's chosen to keep.

Laurie is waiting for a chance to leave the city, to head west, to put the whole mess behind them, because this has never been and never will be her real home.

Adrian, he imagines, is simply waiting to see how it will all end.

The millions of dead, and the particular one he claims for his own, riding unrelentingly on his conscience – well, they aren't waiting for anything.

And the people left alive, these teeming masses camped out on street corners to hold their place in the line, children running in screaming circles to try to keep warm, pockets patted down for spare change or a match or a scrap of food that never turns up, are waiting to get their city back.

It's been reported that this line – just this one, in just this precinct – has been topping out at 17,000 for the last few days. That's a lot of hard rolls, a lot of pots of soup.

Dan shutters Nite Owl away again, back in the dark where dignity can't protest – rubs his hands together against the cold, and steps into position 17,001. His supplies ran out two days ago and for all the money he has there's nothing left to _buy_ with it within city limits, and with half of lower downtown still covered in rubble, it's going to be another long and demanding day.

*


	3. Sear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'standing supping'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: On a stakeout in a Bladerunner-esque criminal underworld, Dan and Rorschach share a meal.

*

The crowd flows, its own kind of organism, cash for blood and sin for sustenance and a bristling and impenetrable wall of concealed knives and guns and handmade explosives for skin, keeping out what doesn't belong; Nite Owl shakes his head and grins tightly against the edges of the cowl. This place always makes him think like goddamned Rorschach.

The stakeout's been going on for three days, breaks taken in turn to fetch food or supplies. They're in full costume and stay that way; this deep into the underbelly of the city, gang bosses and masks mingle more freely than anywhere else in their hijacked jurisdiction. He imagines it feels, to the criminals swarming en masse here, like being one of a thousand mice in the field when the hungry old hunter up above screeches out his murderous intent – they know the target's already been chosen, and the odds of it being any one of them in particular are so far against that it's not really worth startling over.

The food cart owner eyes him suspiciously, sliding two bowls of noodles across the counter, palming the offered bills into his pocket; sweaty from the heat of his cooking flames, and nervous. His health inspection notice is creased and folded under a jar of pepper paste on the counter inside, stained and faded and four years out of date. Nite Owl gives him a sly half-smile, picks up the bowls and two bound sets of chopsticks, and wanders away with the air of a man with far, far bigger fish to fry.

When he finds Rorschach still patrolling the path they'd laid out, intimidating and left well alone despite being a full head shorter and fifty pounds lighter than the thugs he's watching and waiting for and moving through, he doesn't say a word – just hands over a bowl and the sticks and laughs quietly to himself when Rorschach grumbles about foreign garbage and inefficient implements and Dan's own questionable parentage and digs in anyway, mask slipped up haphazardly, hunger clear in his every motion. It's been a long three days, food and sleep grabbed at inconsistent moments and in limited quantities, weariness starting to shake apart their insides.

Dan slips the cord off of his chopsticks, fishes up some of the red-crusted noodles, and it's a rare, fascinating moment – guard down in a way it never is here, just standing together and sharing a meal, rushed and practical but so very human in a basic way that resonates. From here they can see into the heart of all of this darkness, the bustling and shouting and jockeying and it's like the city's laid out its entrails for them to read, tossed its bones, a glimpse of some dark and unfathomable future visible in the pattern of its desperate writhing.

Lights shift and dance through the late evening mist, settling in around them, and Dan finds himself watching in something akin to mesmerism as the neon slides over the lines of his partner's face, diffusing around the edges of the latex and lending the leather of his trench coat a surreal glow – bending in his vision as it filters through the diffusion glass of his goggles.

This place renders everything more animalistic, Dan knows. More dangerous, more coiled, more predatory. It still makes something inside of him jump, complicated and restless, to see the transformation firsthand.

The food is heavily spiced, burning in his mouth, delicate and harsh all at once – as likely to choke him or sear the tongue out of his head as it is to warm and ignite his senses. He considers going back to the stall for some water, but Rorschach glances up then, catches his eyes somewhere between the goggles and the mask and lets them linger for a moment too long, and Dan knows: You don't show weakness in this sort of game.

And hell – he's always been up for a challenge.

*


	4. Oil, Water, Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'oil trestle'  
> Characters: Rorschach, Dan  
> Summary: Rorschach goes walking. Some things won't be left behind.

*

It's a slippery dark oilspill of a night, blacker than black and with a fine, delicately unraveling quiet that bleeds prismatically around the edges – the kind of night where you can see anything in the water at all, faces and memories and prophecies sidling up behind your reflection, stalking you through the endless mirror-sky with eyes that say 'I'm always here, I always will be...'

One foot falls silently and mechanically after the other, the exact span of ties set into the old railway bridge worked easily and instinctually into Rorschach's cadence. This is the easiest and fastest way across the river on foot and alone, and there have been whispers and screams alike tonight that point to the far docks with accusing fingers. If the ringleader isn't there, his men will be, and it will be a good night's hunting regardless.

There's a patch of something slick on a few of the ties that he doesn't see, too focused on the far shore and the unfolding web of tactics in his mind and an awareness of how much slower this is that just taking the ship would have been – _(motor oil),_ he thinks disconnectedly as his feet go out from under him and almost slip straight down between the planks. Catches himself in a surreally drawn-out moment, keenly aware of the distance to the water below; ends up spread flat face-down over several ties, utterly still.

There's oil soaking through his pant leg. In the shifting mirror far below, he can see his own reflection, a stark mass of rippling white around the black that seeps into everything else down there, peering through the faint striation of the rail bridge; Over his shoulder, a too-large moon, crescented and silvery, hanging like a ghost of every horrible idea.

Rorschach jerks his head back up, looking for its twin in the real sky above him. There's nothing but the inky darkness and the faint spangling of what few stars aren't overwhelmed by city glow. New moon, and he knew that. The blackness is absolute.

He really could have taken the ship for this. Could have shown up in the tunnel, and Daniel would have clapped him on the shoulder and pocketed the console and they would have climbed aboard, into that claustrophobically tiny space where he can just about hear both their heartbeats making some old instinctual effort to sync up, to hide their numbers from predator or prey – dash lights glittering in the almost-dark like the cityscape below or every star above. Daniel's hands sure and strong and delicate on the controls, and the way he always laughs and laughs when they rocket free from the tunnel and into the open air beyond, voice layered with all the dizziness of the air currents they're slipping through and...

_[Daniel's hands reaching down to push his own away, to pull back the scarf because the bleeding isn't stopping, ignoring the way he tenses and growls and tries to shift out from under the touch – and the gloved hand is all warm leather and the suggestion of fingertips and it's another crescent, curled in against the hollow of his throat, a sliver of moonlight that smooths back fabric and slips under his skin and turns all of his secrets inside out. Empties him out onto the steelplate floor, while he stands and shakes and shakes.]_

Rorschach breathes out harshly, gives his reflection – alone now, obviously a trick of the light – one more glance before reaching for the vertical struts, hauling himself carefully to his feet.

There are three dozen more steps to the other end of the trestle, and he takes each one now with caution, meticulously deliberate in the placement of every footfall. There are more patches, he can see that now, glinting wetly in the near-total blackness. Each one could kill him with a single misstep, send him slipping down and down into silent depths from which there is no return.

_[Daniel says his name, quiet with worry and fear, crescent-moon hand all slick with red – and the sound of it hums and vibrates and spreads through his mind like oil in water and the ship is too small, far too small.]_

He scratches idly at the stitches ridged underneath his scarf and takes another mindful step. This is still, by far, the less precarious situation.

*


	5. Uncomplicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: [This picture.](http://liodain.livejournal.com/26178.html?thread=210242#t210242)  
> Characters: Dan, Rorscahch  
> Summary: Uncomplicated moments. Fluff.

*

"C'mere," Daniel says from the end of the couch, voice subdued and warm, golden like the slanting sunlight filtering in through the window. It plays over the upholstery and the delicately patterned wallpaper and all through Daniel's hair, painting the world with a skewed, comfortable surreality that makes Walter forget, for a long moment, that these are things for ordinary people - for people who aren't part of any secret fraternities, who don't spend their nights carving a path of righteous violence into the city's calloused heart.

So - forgetfulness in place, fuzzy and thrumming - he follows Daniel into the cushions, sprawling across him like some boneless, melting thing. It's a warm day and his arms are half-bare and the skin there breaks out in gooseflesh when Daniel's hand grips, slides up, gently seeking out a handhold on his shoulder.

And when Daniel leans up to catch his mouth in a kiss, it is as languid and warm and golden as his voice had been, as the sunlight still is, scattering around the edges of vision and recasting the lie into truth: they are ordinary people, and they have hours before that changes, and they have time for moments like these, sun-warmed and slow and uncomplicated.

*


	6. Everybody's Satellite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'orbit I'm'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: Dan considers the eccentricities of the orbits they take; around the world, around each other.

*

He spends his nights circling, working his way closer, sidling sideways between constellations of violence and justice and the brutal efficiency of fists and feet in the dark. The hunter. The judge. The enforcer – spangled across the nighttime landscape of his closed eyes in stars that could just be bursts of pressure in the capillaries but somehow feel more real than that. Like he could reach out and-

He watches the way the criminals fan out around his partner, all of their focus inward, the implacable force of the persona draped in all the blood and nightmares drawing them in like captured Kuiper Belt objects. Then he stops watching, because he has his own vicious little satellites, their teeth shining in diffracted light as they pull lips back to snarl. They aim to break atmosphere, to land with a shattering blow that could have rattled the primitive world’s bones out of its bodies – to leave craters, and all Dan can think, as he deflects the blows and keeps one eye on Rorschach as he batters away the killers caught in his own gravity well, is _(I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.)_

He wouldn’t. He only wants to-

But the broken and unconscious bodies form a ring around Rorschach’s feet, a protective band of debris in a stable high orbit that says ‘stay away – this is what happens to marauding comets and asteroids and yes, even smiling yellow moons, amnesiac and careful and threading loving smokelike hands through the grass, when they try to fall to ground.’

There’s a grunt from under the mask, and bloodied gloves retreat into pockets, the crumbling dust of a devastation too old and horrible to bear scattering against his coat and to the ground. He steps out of the ring, past Dan

_(but not too close, never too close, can’t take the chance of accidentally pulling you in – the moon circling the dead star, orbits interleaving and elliptical and strange but never meeting, oh god, never colliding. because he would survive but you would be obliterated, gone like you never were, crushed into nothing by the force of something too powerful for science or life or the human mind to contain-)  
_  
and out to the street. He’s strangely backlit, and is that real starlight, or the streetlamps – or is it something inside Dan himself, casting a forgiving glow over familiar lines and angles, a topography of jagged-edged brilliance that his eyes can trace even in the dark?

The night spins out around them, a widening spiral of black unwinding between the stars.

*


	7. Presents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Dan giving Rorschach the grapple gun. The first time Rorschach felt comfortable enough with Dan to call him Daniel instead of Nite Owl."  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: Rorschach receives two gifts.

*

  
Rorschach's standing in the entrance of the tunnel, and he's glancing at his watch impatiently, and he's not _moving_ \- so he isn't telegraphing the deep pain in his knee and hip, down his entire left side, an aching map of carelessness. He knows that Nite Owl will see it as soon as he takes a step, and he still remembers watching his fingers slip away from the railing of the top-floor fire escape, detached, as if they were someone else's; the look on Nite Owl's face under the goggles as he peeled away out of sight, and he'd gotten lucky - very, very lucky.

"Come here," Nite Owl says, tone casual, pretending not to be watching out of the corner of his eye as Rorschach tries to cover the limp. He is hunched over a workbench; in full uniform but for the cowl pushed back to rest between his shoulders, the goggles around his neck.

Rorschach really,_ really _wishes he would not go so casually unmasked. He tries to let his eyes slip off of the planes of Nite Owl's cheekbones, to soft-focus his perception of the features in front of him, in case he's ever to be questioned and tortured for the other's identity. He doesn't want to know that face. Liability. The name too, but that is already soft-edged in his mind, in the way it rides on his tongue but never quite slips free. There's nothing he can do to further dilute it.

The leather gauntlets are working over a device - a gun, it looks like, but with a triad of hooked spikes clamped backwards around the barrel. Grappling gun. Interesting. Would have been useful last-

Hrm.

There's no more detail work to be done; Nite Owl's just cleaning it, taking the rough spots of grease and clumped iron filings and machine oil onto his gloves as if they were no more than rags. "Here," he says, turning in the chair and holding it out by the barrel, grip first.

Rorschach cocks his head to one side, curious. Nite Owl has never asked his opinion on his gadgetry before, but he takes the gun in one hand, hefts it experimentally. "Well balanced," he offers, running the other gloved hand over the switches and dials; the CO2 canister is cold to the touch, even through the leather. "Good engineering and machinework."

Nite Owl just grins, and no, he really does not want to know that smile so well, to have it burned into memory like a brand.

He stands for a moment, the device in hand, an awkward silence falling around them - before he moves to hand it back, unsure of what other opinions he can offer until he sees Nite Owl use it tonight, sees how it actually performs.

Nite Owl shakes his head, refusing to take it, arms folded over his chest. "No, no," he says, and he's still smiling. "That's yours."

_Yours._

Nite Owl built this, rigged it up for use, and put it into his hand. _His_ hand. It's...

No. It's not a gift. That would be ludricrous. "How much?" he asks, fingering the stainless steel spikes driven back from the snubbed nose of the thing.

Now Nite Owl does look confused, eyebrows furrowing. Perhaps he hasn't decided on a fair exchange yet? Then why hand it over now? He just stares at Rorschach for a long moment, as if trying to work out a complicated puzzle.

"Tell you what," he finally says, reaching back to pull his cowl up into place. "Next time you would otherwise fall off a building and die, use that instead. And we'll call it even."

The goggles swallow his eyes, and the face disappears into the uniform, but the more of himself is hidden, the more Nite Owl's name is trying to change into something else, something treasonous and deadly - and the mask has never hidden that smile, has it?

"...thank you, Daniel."

*


	8. Inappropriate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Rorschach giving Dan an entirely inappropriate birthday present (bizarre, lame, creepily thoughtful). 'Not a birthday present. Didn't even know it was your birthday. Look up your file? Of course I didn't.'"  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: Rorschach is a creepy (but thoughtful!) stalker.

*

It has a bow on top.

A _bow_.

There are a lot of ideas Dan's had to reorganize in his head in order to accommodate the shifting enigma of a man standing in front of him; a lot of stereotypes shifted and old reactions shelved and concepts of social interaction taken on a sharp, sharp left turn, cut to ribbons and stapled back together into roughly the shape of a pineapple.

He's not prepared for a bow.

It's old, and matted, and a horrible shade of mustard yellow, and it smells like dirt - not like uncleanliness, but like soil, like earth, and _oh god he must have stolen it from a cemetery-  
_  
Under the bow is a wrapping layer of butcher's paper, meticulously folded and woven into place, precise and perfect. Underneath the paper, a paperback book - used, the spine creased and the pages yellowed.

It's a Christie novel. It's the only one missing from his collection, the only hole he's never been able to fill. At first, all he can do is smile, wide and warm and a little awkward-

That collection is in his bedroom. On the shelves on the near wall, impossible to even see without walking in, turning around, roving eyes or a light, careful fingertip down the row of spines.

It's exactly the one he's missing. It could not possibly have been a lucky guess.

The bow still smells like gravedirt.

"Th- uh. Thank you," he says, forcing the smile to stay in place. "How did you know, uh. That it was my birthday?"

Rorschach shrugs, shoulders rolling loosely in the coat. "Not a birthday gift." A pause, and Dan's sure that he's smiling under the mask. "How would I know when your birthday is?"

How would he know-  
_  
(How would he know your **birthday?**)_

The bow smells like gravedirt but the book smells like well-worn and well-loved literature, ink and paper and glue and sweat from long summers spent clutching it in the weary shadows of oak trees, anything to provide an escape, to distract from the unbearable heat.

It's a hot night, and Dan thinks he still has a few bottles of Coke in the fridge. He nods towards the kitchen, invitation open, and the smile is no longer strained.

*


	9. WAFFLE TIME WAFFLE TIME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Rorschach eating something other than beans."  
> Characters: Rorschach, Dan  
> Summary: There is contention over Dan's choice of breakfast.

*

"Waffles. Seriously?"

Dan's standing in front of his stove, the skillet in his hand utterly useless if the direction of this conversation is to be believed. He'd only even _offered_ pancakes because he was already making a few for himself; saw no harm in using up all of the batter instead of half of it, and Rorschach has never been picky about what's handed to him.

Until now.

"Superior product in every way, Daniel," Rorschach asserts, tilting his head to one side as if the statement is so obvious that even saying it aloud is a curiosity.

Dan lets the pan clatter to the counter; rubs circles into his temples, cradling a rapidly blossoming headache. "The batter's completely different, I can't just use it without adjustments..."

And he knows Rorschach won't _tell_ him to adjust it, to go ahead and add more sugar and whatever else it needs, to haul his ancient waffle iron down from the top cabinet and get to work - but under normal circumstances, he wouldn't even still be here. Would have long since pushed his chair out(scraping the legs across the linoleum the entire way), made some noise about not wanting to inconvenience him, been gone.

Under the pulled-up mask, Rorschach's mouth is a tight line of indecision. He seems paler than he should be, cheeks sunken more than they were this time last week. Dan wonders idly when the last time was that he actually ate.

*

It takes an extra half-hour to adjust the batter and get the old iron heated up, but sitting across the table from Rorschach as he carefully fills in tiny squares with syrup, creating symmetric patterns in the grid, something almost like a smile on his face - all Dan can think is, really, what's an extra half hour out of his life, for this?

*


	10. First Class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Airline kitties'  
> Characters: Adrian, Bubs  
> Summary: The dangers of feline air travel.

*

He only ever attempts to travel with Bubastis once.

*

She's a kitten, a tiny thing, all brilliantly hued fur still coming in in random clumps as if she hasn't quite decided what color she wants to be yet. The geneticists were primarily focused on physical health and viability; they've given even odds on red or lilac-blue, and while red would certainly be more 'natural', Adrian's been secretly hoping for the latter.

Not that any of that matters worth a damn, when the airline attendant peers into the underseat carrier he's brought her in and looks up at him with mistrust and horror in her eyes. "What _is_ that?" she asks, as if he's brought a bloody, rabid badger to her instead of a marvelously adorable baby lynx, color-coordination issues notwithstanding.

"A cat," he says simply, eying the attendant with a careful blend of sympathy and wariness, as if to say 'I'm dreadfully sorry you're so unintelligent; your family must be devastated.'

It does the trick.

*

On the airplane, she begins to yowl. He expects this during the rapid pressure-change of takeoff, expects her to stop once they've leveled off.

She does not stop.

There is grumbling around him about pets being allowed in the first-class compartment.

"She's a very first-class sort of cat," Adrian replies, and his tone could freeze fire. The compartment is silent for the rest of the flight.

*

Silent, of course, except for his poor baby girl, who will not. Stop. Crying.

*

Two hours over the Pacific and he decides to open the travel bag a tiny bit, sneak her a morsel of something in case all this noise is hunger - he has a travel packet of both the ostrich and salmon she's becoming accustomed to, as well as a vending-machine bag of cheesy crackers, an unhealthy indulgence that he figures won't do her any harm just this once. But when he reaches into the bag to try to calm her, inch-long canines sink straight into his hand.

He makes a strangled sound, smiling through the agony - retracts his hand, and politely asks the nearest stewardess for a clean towel and a bandage, please.

Afterward, he eats the crackers himself. It's satisfying.

*

Thirteen hours and he would have thought infantile feline lungs and vocal cords would have given out by now, but he'd have been wrong.

*

He's prodded awake by the large, sweaty man in the seat next to him, in the badly cut suit and worse hairpiece. He's only _just_ managed to get to sleep amidst the cacophony and now he's been _woken up_ -

"Need to do something about that," he man says, pointing to the bag, and Adrian's about to snap that yes, yes, he _knows_, he's been trying, when the smell hits him like the front grill of a run-down, unmarked van.

"...oh, Bubs," he mutters, leaning down towards the bag, nose tightly clenched between two fingers. "Tell me you _didn't._"

*

By the time he reaches his destination, he emerges an Adrian Veidt that the world has never seen before, even after the longest international jaunts: haggard, worn, with dark bags under his eyes, a badly bandaged hand, a head that feels like cold iron, dragging towards the ground. It's all he can do to check into his hotel - the penthouse suite, naturally, and no, they don't usually accept pets but of course for Mr. Veidt they will make an exception - and let Bubastis out of her carrier to explore her new environs, all kittenish joy and curiosity.

Through the haze of pain and sleep-deprivation and weariness, Adrian sits down to watch her, and smiles.

*


	11. Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: '$45 retyped'  
> Characters: Dan  
> Summary: Post-GN, Dan loses many things, regains others. It's not really a fair trade.

*

He sits, hunched over a typewriter, banging away. It's not electric, so he can make do without power, without running water, hiding in warehouse after warehouse as he's flushed out like a particularly large specimen of stinking vermin. The typewriter has a handle, is easy to transport, is all that matters. Human life isn't worth much in Adrian's utopia. Ideas, though. Well.

_ ("I’d recommend you keep quiet, or...") _

A threat, a warning, a piece of good advice. He'd assumed that trailing end would wrap itself around a lonely, unmarked gravesite, was braided from steel and resolve, had teeth. He'd never expected this kind of detached, anticlimactic ruination.

_ ("Or what, Adrian?") _

The journal was easy enough to rescue from the dumpster behind the Frontiersman's office, so much lunatic refuse sent away for burial. That burial was more of a luxury than its owner ever got was not lost on him, did not fail to make his knuckles clamp white in fury around the battered spine. Does not let him forget, even now when so much else has fled, faded like an old, forgotten nightmare.

Somewhere nearby, rats' feet through detritus, and they do not dream. They are fearless.

The keys strike the roller, heavy and final, as he retypes every entry with careful attention to the nearly illegible script. Yesterday, he was mistaken for homeless, and a man tried to palm him five dollars, gave him a look that said there was more to be had if he was desperate enough to... and he _ is_ homeless, but he's not _ that_ kind of homeless, and he–

He doesn't–

He isn't–

A noise across the room, and he jumps. Reality's getting a little disconnected – yesterday and today, cause and effect, and it's easy to slide into then as if it were now. He has a gash in his side that probably needs attention, but he's wrapped some packing paper over it and that'll be good enough; the ceiling creaks under the weight of snow, makes this space feel like remembrance. His fingers are cold and blue on the keys, crisscrossed in tiny itching slices. Free association: Papercuts, paper hearts, broken hearts, hearts that were never whole to break – the feel of wiry hair and scarred skin under his hands and somewhere in there, something true that he needs to unearth, to understand. He feels hands on his own, sometimes, guiding them to keep typing typing typing until his fingers lock up so hard that will alone can't overcome it.

_ ("Daniel...") _

There's $45 in loose mixed bills burning like a brand in his back left pocket. It's charity that sustains him, and it chafes. He doesn't charge for these meticulously drafted pamphlets, but people come back and find him sometimes, whispering mad entreaties into his ear, questions that buzz and buzz like detuned static, and they give him money that they don't expect anything in return for. Repayment for the truth, nothing more. And god but he's thin these days, an open and wasted kind of leanness that marks him, that clings to him like a bad smell. He has to eat. He's still aware of that, that his body is a machine that requires fuel and if he doesn't feed it then eventually he will be bone and skin and three layers of wool, armor against the stinging January freeze, with fingers that no longer move. Duty is more important than pride; he has to eat, so he takes the money.

_ (And just whose life have you commandeered, what rogue spirit have you let settle into your flesh as if it belongs, as if it's always belonged?) _

It was such an easy thing to find, this book, as if it'd walked into his hands of its own volition, and sometimes he remembers it happening that way. So easy and so _ impossible _ because he _ knew_ what would–

_ ("Whatever precise nature of this conspiracy, Adrian Veidt responsible.")_

(Loose paper raining down from a balcony in a flurry of black and white and motion and that's it, that's **it**–)

He doesn't remember what they did when they finally caught him, pressed his face into the sleet and twisted middle-aged joints further than they ever should have gone. He doesn't remember much anymore, really. Pain, he remembers, sharp in the back of his head, pain like light and discordant music and the color of violets, exploding synesthetically against a backdrop of _ how could you_ and _this isn't right_ and _ I won't let him have died for nothing_ and rainwater tracing down the edge of painted wood, smearing newsprint into muddy grey and dripping, dripping...

_ ("I do regret that it's come to this, Dan.") _

He turns the journal to the last page. He has three copies finished already, needs two more if he wants to hit the street by noon. The voice echoing detached against his urges him on, and some days this feels like defiance, like proving to Adrian that these things cannot be suppressed.

Some days, it just feels like obsession.

*


	12. And You Won't Even Notice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'a stalking'  
> Characters: Rorschach, Dan  
> Summary: Rorschach is an actually creepy stalker.

*

The raisin bran is exactly where he remembers it being; almost a decade on, and Daniel hasn't so much as changed the organization of his pantry.

[Probably hasn't changed the routes he takes, to the library, to the store, to the diner, to Mason's garage. Hasn't changed his lock company, either.]

The coffee pot is a new model but it would take a man of far lower intelligence to be unable to decipher its use; a pot is percolating, burbling and popping loudly in the quiet brownstone, within minutes.

[It won't wake him up. He sleeps so soundly these days; you know, because you've stood and watched him a lot over the last few years, testing his instincts, gauging how long it will be before he falls victim to a burglar or an old grudge. It worries you when you're willing to admit to it.]

Cereal, milk, a rattle in the drawer for a spoon, and Rorschach sits at the table, crunching on the flakes and slurping his coffee and thinking about how he could be turning out the drawers down here, going through the shelves. Setting explosives. Loading a gun.

*

He stands over Daniel, disappointed as always. It's less the shape his old partner's allowed himself to fall into - that can be fixed, with motivation – and more the complacency of the spirit that allows a man to sleep on while hands that have broken necks and strangled the life out of bodies hang over him.

_Could have a knife against your throat,_ he thinks, watching the shallow rise and fall of breath. _A gun at your temple, fingers around your windpipe, all before you would wake up. Could kill you right now. Anyone could._

Three days ago, a false closet wall had slid back, revealing a costume hanging like a shed skin, like the shell of the hero who'd been scraped off the sidewalk the night before._ Comedian,_ his brain had supplied and then, immediately,_ mask killer. _A moment after that, framed photograph in hand, _Wonder how good Daniel's locks are, these days._

Not very good, as it turns out.

He wakes Daniel up. The sight of him, vulnerable, laid back in bed and waiting for the hands to descend, like a man already dead and given up – it's too much to bear.

["Who next? Veidt? Juspeczyk? Me?"

"You?"]

He'll tell himself later that Daniel is a failure, that his condition is his own fault, that he chose to go soft, leave himself open to attack. Then he will feel the heavy weight of the cologne bottle in his pocket, the scent of the man lingering around him with every step, like old times, like _good_ times, and concede that he's still worried.

His shoes will take a good wearing over the next few days, the sign in his hands blistering him where his hands grip it too tightly. Daniel may not _like_ being followed – may not like his inferior locks broken or the feel of eyes on the back of his neck or a second rhythm of breath falling across his while he sleeps, shadow lurking over him in the dark, but he's forfeited his say in the matter.

It's for his own good.

*


	13. Well Spent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'trips times'  
> Characters: The Bernies  
> Summary: Bernie the younger runs errands; there is a purpose to it.

*

The first time he puts the kid to work, it's 'cause the Times ain't come in yet and next to the Gazette that's his biggest seller. Doesn't figure he needs to worry about labor laws or W-2 forms or any of that bullshit; just waves a twenty at him and asks if he'd be so kind as to put down the damn comic he's been reading(and isn't ever gonna pay for, of course) and make himself useful.

The kid isn't poor; ain't rich or he'd have something better to do than sit on a sidewalk reading comics, but his clothes are always clean and in good shape and he doesn't have that hungry look the real poor kids do. Still, twenty bucks is twenty bucks and every kid's got secret dreams, shit his parents won't buy him, treasures eyed behind glass windows that have got to be saved up for, meticulous and slow.

So the boy reaches for the twenty("Not so fast, kid – work first, money after," and they finally agree to half up-front and half later) and he saunters off down the street to the Times' office.

He's back only twenty minutes later, as tall a stack of papers as he can manage in his arms. "Truck flipped over on 42nd," he says, dropping the stack, snatching up the other ten-dollar-bill and plopping back into place with his comic. "They're sendin' more soon as they can. Said that should see you through."

Twenty dollars well spent he figures, as the stack dwindles with the daylight – and from the sidewalk below, the soft swish of pages turning.

*

There are other errands, other trips after this late delivery or that one, and the kid hangs around more and more often – he doesn't thank him for the work but doesn't resent it either, so he must be saving for something big. Bernard doesn't ask; just pulls out cash like carrots and sends the kid running for him and lets his old bones rest.

Seasons turn. The comic turns out to be shit, apparently – no ending, but endings are in the air all around them by then and he's sick to death of the stink of them. Crazy hobos transmute into vigilantes, the Russians belly up to the line. He learns the kid's name, finally. Gives him his hat. Tells him to kiss his mother.

The last errand he sends him on is to fetch them both some lunch, middle of a cold day. First of November. World didn't end yesterday. Is he sure?

They eat, and the latest comic is a little better, he learns, and then Joey's there and some strangers and damn if hell isn't breaking loose around them and then light, light, and he never even found out what the kid had been saving for–

*

Twenty dollars well spent, he figures, to have someone to hang onto in the end, to pretend to be protecting, to go to pieces with as the world ends.

*


	14. Understood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'never in so many words.'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: Broken things sometimes require repair, and many things are understood.

*

It's the winter of 1982, somewhere in the muddy, grey-washed depths of February, and it's hard to remember anymore what sunlight feels like warming over skin. The days are short and over before Dan blinks and it's all he can do dial the heat up, turn all the lights on, make cups of cocoa and coffee and tea and nurse them until they're half-finished and cold. All the usual solicitors have disappeared in the wake of the season like squirrels, hibernating away until spring – so when the knock comes, somehow weak in its brittle, sharp precision, there's really not many people it could be.

He opens the door wordlessly – does a once-over, takes in the strange way the sleeve of Rorschach's coat is pulling against itself, halfway up his forearm. Sighs.

"Go on," he says, nodding into the house, the nature of the visit clear now. "And lose the layers, so I can see what I'm working with."

*

Once he's in the living room, he does – careful, careful, easing them over the increasingly obvious deformation under the skin. The stripping away of leather and cotton is no great act of trust; the nights that would end with them both bare to the waist and mottled in bruises and carefully patching skin back together with quiet wonder, amazed at the sheer humanness of the bodies under all the armor and bravado, are long gone. This is nothing – this is procedural, like all of Rorschach's visits since '77. It could just as easily be a broken axle in Archie's hydraulics he's reaching to repair.

"This is gonna hurt," Dan mumbles, and it's the stupidest thing he's ever said because he's got his fingers laced through Rorschach's and the other hand anchoring at his elbow and he's about to pull and no _shit_ it's going to hurt. But there's a moment where the mask scrunches up, riding over a face Dan can tell is pinched in awful anticipation and the only thing he can think is _god, so he can still feel after all_–

Then the bone is set and Dan's splinting it and the breath next to him is ragged and uncontrolled, verging on a vocalization it'll never quite form.

He won't be thanked for this. This is procedural; like so much of everything, like so much of nothing. He ties off the end of the gauze; doesn't suggest casting, knows it'll only end with an insult and he doesn't have the stomach for it right now, in this shared space, so close to the heat of another body and wrapped in the scent of violence and familiarity. The bare elbow is cold and heavy in his hand, as if all of Rorschach's weight were anchored there in his palm.

He won't be thanked – he never is, never has been, even in those early days when every other word and every combination were at the man's command, spun so easily into the texture of their lives, the city's life. Words and words and words, enough to drive Dan insane at times, but never those two. Unspoken. Understood.

Rorschach coughs, choking on his own breath, and leans in against him – for support against shock and dizziness, maybe. For something else, maybe.

He won't thank Dan, and Dan won't point out the way he'd tensed up before the pain in some washed-out lizard-brain memory of fear. In return, Rorschach will use this last refuge to momentarily slide back into who he was in 1966, 1967, hunched under Dan's careful hands in the basement, human skin shifting and bleeding under all of the pretense. It'd always been a secret too big to bear alone.

In a half-hour he'll be gone, disappeared out the door again and maybe it'll be a month, six months, a year. But for now he'll lean in and shiver away the pain and let himself be supported and every carefully controlled breath will say it: _Needed you. Still need you. Have no one else to go to._

Thank you.

*


	15. Numbers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Prisoner 62186'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: When you insist on seeing the world in terms of numbers, everything eventually reduces to zero.

*

It takes less than twelve hours. The mugshots are everywhere – tiny, smeared rectangles of newsprint, grainy renditions on the television screen, an inset of black and white in the corner of the screen with a name under it, a number. The name and the face mean nothing now; they meant nothing before, severed from any meaning by the man who bore them but now they are less than that.

Dan should have known, _Nite Owl_ should have known, first. But if he thinks too hard on it, it makes him feel queasy and strange, confused in a way he associates with earlier years and earlier betrayals. It reawakens sense memories of bloodscent and the prickle of cool early morning air on the back of his neck, gooseflesh and creeping horrors, so he's trying not to.

The number, though – that's burned in.

*

["What's that?" he asks one night, casual; they've hit a lull in patrol and while he navigates the labyrinthine corridors with a careful deliberation, the Owlship skimming just high enough over the alleyways to not snag power cables or clotheslines or upset the sleeping innocent in their top-floor tenements, Rorschach has pulled a different book than usual out of his coat. Is carefully laying clippings of newsprint into it with tape, jotting down notes under each one.

Rorschach looks up - there's no face but what chance and thermodynamics care to interpret for him and that still unnerves him, even now, even a year in – and then glances back down. "Logbook," he says, taping down a final scrap. They're mugshots, Nite Owl can see now, and they're familiar. "Trying to keep track of the scum we take off the streets. Keep a sense of perspective."

A pause, just long enough to be awkward.

"Perspective on–"

The pen flashes in the periphery of vision, clarifying the prisoner's designation under the hard-to-read clipping, but not the name. "Unimportant, Nite Owl. You should pay attention to flying the ship. Inattentive drivers make their passengers uncomfortable."

"Right, right," Nite Owl mutters, attention back on the city below them, on the controls. Three nights ago they'd had a discussion on how useless this seemed, sometimes – how little of an impact they seemed to be making. _Perspective;_ the word feels coded. "Why just the numbers?"

Another pause, and the hard slap of a book closing too suddenly. "Numbers are all they are. All they deserve."

There's a scuffle down below then, a distraction from further questioning that Rorschach seems pleased by, the tension draining out of his frame as he uncoils, liquid, from the chair – heads for the hatch.

And as Dan pulls Archie into a tight descent, he's already counting the thugs, calculating their odds, running numbers in his head like the upcoming battle is nothing but math and the people below nothing but ciphers and maybe, maybe Rorschach is right.]

*

Three killings, they're saying. Five policemen injured. Three broken ribs, second-degree burns. Murder one, murder two, seven counts of assault. Four floors through that broken window and eight years since Keene, ten since the crime that put him on their radar, twenty since the first time he appeared in this newspaper, Nite Owl by his side, triumphant over their first gang victory; it amazes Dan in a detached, cynical sort of way how much the world relies on its numbers, its shortcuts, its easy explanations for the unexplainable.

[The logbook grew thick with newsprint, filled up, was replaced and maintained until well into 1975. Afterwards, Dan never saw it again, and he supposes now that there wasn't much use for it when Rorschach started leaving too little left of his quarry for the police to give it a number, bother taking a picture. The dead have no numbers; only names, whispered in dark places, immortal.]

Cellblock seven. Fifteen minutes to get in and out. Two arrive on the ship, three leave, and then soon enough it's two again, skimming over the ocean to the place where they will all live forever.

The newspaper is still back in his kitchen, wedged under a canister of flour on his countertop, and it'll be there for a long time. Fat flakes of snow swirl, uncountable.

Far away, people die, uncountable.

Silence for a moment, and a face that's had no name for too many years, and the numbers drop away.

*


	16. Uninvited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'gatecrashing'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach  
> Summary: RSVPs are for the weak.

*

"No, no, _no_," the man says, all snooty detachment. "Even if you had an invitation – which you don't – neither of you is properly attired to meet the Congressman's dress code."

It's an incredible understatement. Nite Owl's costume is as far from black-tie as you can get, and there are leaves and brambles stuck in the spandex, clinging; Rorschach's trenchcoat is smeared in mud, the suit under it entirely inappropriate in color and cut. He grumps indistinctly off to the side as Nite Owl fishes through belt pouches for the photograph they'd pulled from police archives yesterday night. _His _idea had been to sneak around back, pry up a window, sneak in. Nite Owl had decided that, public servants the city sees them as, they should be able to talk their way past the defenses, stroll in with the homeowner's blessing.

It isn't working.

"Look," Nite Owl says, unfolding the photograph, holding it up in the light. "We're looking for this man – he's a known money-launderer, he's wanted on more counts of fraud and extortion and aiding and abetting than we have time to list right now. He's in there _right now_."

The party's halfway done, so there's no one else arriving this late; they're alone out here. The night is a complete, new moon darkness, and they could have sneaked in so easily.

"That he may be," the usher sniffs, "But you don't strike me as law enforcement."

They're too close to the entrance and the man is making too much of a fuss, too loudly. Their target could be overhearing right now, making his escape out the same back window Rorschach wanted to go in through, slipping away into the night, through their fingers. Again.

"And you also don't appear to have a warrant."

It's too much, he's had enough of this simpering appeasement tactic, and the target could be getting away_ right this second_–

"Look, come on now–"

A blur of motion then, and it's over before Nite Owl can possibly react or stop him – one punch, perfectly aimed, unexpected and untelegraphed. The man drops to the ground like a sack of laundry, and in the wake of it, the grounds are silent.

Then, laughter.

*

"What?" Rorschach asks as they take the stairs two at a time, defensive, prickling at Nite Owl's amusement. "Was obstructing justice."

"I think," Nite Owl says, "that would be considered assault."

"Probably, yes. For the greater good."

Nite Owl puts a hand on the doorframe, steadies himself. "You just _sucker punched_ an unarmed civilian."

A long silence; then a response comes, as he makes ready to pull back the door. "A very _annoying_ unarmed civilian."

"God," Nite Owl says, and there's still laughter in his voice, alongside the mock-horror. He takes a last look at the photograph before putting it away. "Remind me never to annoy you; you've got a hell of a right hook."

"Annoy me constantly, Nite Owl. Special dispensation."

"Because I'm your partner?"

Another suspicious silence, longer this time. From inside, the party is obnoxiously loud.

"...yes. Of course."

*


	17. Good Advices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Walter wants to make a good first impression, even if he won't admit it.  
> Prompt: 'Rorschach, getting ready for the Crimebuster's meeting'  
> Characters: Dan, Rorschach.

*

He closes the coat. Opens it again.

Tilts his head to one side, considering; the long mirror in Nite Owl's basement matches him, showing a figure far more intimidating than the young man he knows is under all the layers. Walter frowns too much; has horrible hair and horrible ears, like a child or an overkicked dog; pricks his fingers on sewing needles and burns them on his hotplate. Is miserable, ugly, weak. Has human needs. Rorschach doesn't need a thing.

Certainly doesn't need to worry about his appearance, or about the opinions of other crimefighters, even if some of them will be the old guard, the ones who started this thing. The squirming filth of humanity, burrowing madly into every warm body it can find, digging away from the light – that might be what inspired him to do _something,_ but these men provided the framework, the idea. That's due some respect, surely.

No. It's–

He closes the coat again, squaring his shoulders.

It's irrelevant. He's doing more good than any of them do anyway; he's heard all the recent exploits, the fashionable photogenic raids and conflicts, the easy, clean work that anyone with a cape and a pair of handcuffs and pocket change for the payphone could manage.

His hat's crooked; he reaches to resettle it, carefully centered. Meticulous fingers flatten through the creases of his scarf, pressing it down over the lapels of the suit jacket.

No one's opinion matters but his own, and even that is going too far, is ridiculous, because appearance has nothing to do with–

"Coat open," Nite Owl says, wandering past behind him, sparing the reflection only a second's glance. "Makes you more approachable."

Rorschach glares after him, gloves curling into fists at his side. "Didn't ask for your opinion, Nite Owl."

"Apparently can't decide without it," Nite Owl mumbles, running the last few pre-flight checks on the ship.

He hesitates, caught between violence and incredulity – turns back to the mirror, considering.

"Anyway, I thought you didn't care about things like that."

"Don't," Rorschach growls, sharp and censuring. Abandons the pursuit entirely, crosses the basement like the threat of lightning and oblivion, hauling himself into the hatch and moving to brood antisocially in the rear corner of the ship.

Nite Owl doesn't say a word when they arrive, when they drop down to the pavement outside of their host's home and his coat's somehow found its way open as advised – just smiles, wide and self-indulgent and biting back worse, and it's a very punchable expression.

*


	18. In the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Dan/Rorschach, "bump in the night"' (monsters), but it is a monster whose only prey is itself. Adult!

*

There are worse things in the city than them.

That doesn't make any of what they do acceptable; doesn't make these illicit moments of heat overwhelming sense anything other than a transgression. They are the worst kind of monster he knows, two human minds pared down to animal depravity, will subjugated by the hot slide of skin over skin and the sharp, small sounds that have no place in battle and no place in the light; too many limbs at all the wrong angles, horrible and nightmarish. It's a creature from the blackest depths of the human psyche and they're compelled to summon its likeness every time the violence is too much and leaves them too hollow it its wake, every time they need to split themselves apart and become something else, something not human enough to care what it's seen in the gutters and alleys of a city gone rabid and deaf and dumb.

He leans in, bites Daniel on the mouth; tastes iron and salt. The choked sound he pulls free is halfway to a sob, and there is some poetic justice in the idea that this monster will wound itself, devour itself, touch no one else with its ichor. Once its lifeforce is spent it will retreat and leave only two broken men behind, curled in against its ravages – dispossess them, like a spirit leaving its host, once they're sweat-stained and open and vulnerable enough, once there is no going back.

Daniel groans again, high and desperate, and Rorschach closes the distance between them, all teeth and scraping nails and hands that could do a thousand injuries, sooth a thousand more. Could.

There are worse things in the city than them, than this heaving mass of muscle and bone and sinewy flesh tight under the press of palms, turning itself inside out in the shadows of Daniel's bedroom. Things that murder, steal, take the virtue of the unwilling. The inhuman creatures they capture and punish by night – tonight, last night, every night – hurt others. This monster shrieks and tosses and looks like bloody murder stared in the face, but in the end, it will only ever hurt itself.

A rolling motion, and they crash against the wall, and the sheets are uncomfortable and scratchy under his back now. A brief struggle, too many hands all too wet and skin that gives too easily, and then Daniel is sinking down onto him, crying out like he's being gutted, hoarse and small. In that instant, there are no lines anymore; they are one thing, hot and dark and crawling out of the shadows on spidery legs. A thousand nightmares. A thousand more.

They only ever hurt themselves. They only hurt–

They only–

He bucks up and he bears down and there is no Daniel and no Rorschach anymore, there are no names. Just a beast that craves flesh but no blood, violence but no death, darkness but no victims other than itself, unraveling to its threads and pooling on the bed around their knees and later they will sleep in its remains, a nest of entrails going cold and sweet with rot all around them.

Devoured.

*


	19. Among Ruins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captcha prompt: 'seen gentlest'. New York has become a city of ghosts.

*

He's heard it both ways, heard the evidence for both sides. Some say that the ghosts are real, that the psychic impact was enough to freeze these spirits in their last moment, encourage them to hang around and pester the living. Others insist that selfsame was enough to drive everyone in the city crazy. Mass hallucination. Dan isn't sure about the cause but he _is_ sure he knows the figure that lingers most nights in the alley outside his home by shape alone; stature, posture, the flare of the coat and the fan of its collar.

He can't get close enough to see anything but the shape, black-on-black and insubstantial. He only ever has time to lock his eyes with where the apparition's eyes must be, and it cocks its head and tries to speak and evaporates away into a symmetrical blot against the city walls, every time.

"Dan?" Laurie's just inside the door, setting a bag of groceries on the counter. Her voice is carefully metered where moments ago it'd been light; she's being cautious. "Did you see him again?"

Dan shifts the bag he's carrying, looks up into the doorway, and smiles, covering the last few steps. "Yeah. Just making sure we got in okay, I guess."

"Of course," she says, and her smile's as careful as her voice, and he hates that she feels like she has to treat him like glass, this far into the aftermath. If Laurie's seen any of the city's milling dead, she hasn't let on, and there's something tickling his brain about neither sanity nor insanity ever truly knowing itself.

But he just shrugs and lets it go, because he knows it's the truth even if he doesn't _know_– can feel the concern rolling out of the shadow in waves, the relief every time they manage to slip through Veidt's tightening noose for another day. Going out is dangerous, and they only do it when they have to. In the alley, he's always waiting for their return, the need to see them to safety something palpable and dense in the air. Smoke, or ink.

Dan looks back, but the brickwork is empty now, lit evenly by the nearby streetlight. He takes a breath. It's okay. There'll be other nights.

Because there are a lot of ghosts in the city, and Dan's seen plenty of them. Most are just angry, hurt, uncomprehending and lashing out. For all that Rorschach was a miserable, violent bastard in life, as easily tracked by bloody footprints as by the sound of breaking bones, it's only in the shadow of a familiar coat and hat and feet planted shoulder-width apart in eternal defiance that he's seen any gentleness in this place, a spark of sympathy, concern for the living amidst the concerns of the dead.

It should bother him that his friend is so restless and rootless, cut adrift in New York's firmament when he should have found rest. But he never seems to be suffering, just stands and watches and radiates some kind of quiet, understated affection (it has occurred to Dan that if he is imagining this, that is precisely what he would imagine, what he most wants to have been true) and it's a nice change to feel like someone cares about them.

It should bother him that Laurie looks at him like this, like he's teetering carelessly on the edge of some terrifying cliff and doesn't even know it.

It should bother him that he doesn't question it himself anymore, because it really is entirely possible that he's just gotten comfortable enough with his hallucinations to give them names, imagined faces. Even if it's real, the shade may not be as self-aware as Dan thinks; seeking for his safety may be nothing more than a split-second flash of regrets and unfinished business burning up what's left of his consciousness.

(_Why do you think he does it?_ Laurie has asked him, and he's never had a satisfactory answer. He doesn't think it's really the question she wants to ask, anyway.)

He may be trapped in a moment, or all of them. He may think he's still braced against oblivion in the snow, or dragging Dan bloody through an alley in 1969, or watching a house slowly burn down to cinders.

(Dan feels an apology crawling up his throat some nights, fighting to escape before the ghost can try to speak first and disappear under the weight of it. It always gets stuck there, lodging like a chunk of apple, an old bone.)

He may be nothing, he may be everything, he may be something in between, neither and both. He is certainly silent, tenacious in his watching, and the way Dan holds onto his shifting face in dreams, peeling back the darkness and raking fingers over the skin he never touched just to prove that it's real, well, it's probably unhealthy. But in this grisly, terrifying world where they find no kind quarter among allies and grace is as scarce as food and water and sanity, Dan will take whatever shred of gentle friendship he can get.

*


	20. Half a World Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captcha prompt: 'face Panama'. How far would you go for a friend?

*

Rorschach shows up for patrol as usual, which Dan expects. He shows up with a scarf wrapped neatly around his face, blackened with dye over his eyes to make it easier to see through, which Dan doesn't expect.

He swivels in his work chair; behind him on the desk, a dozen leads, none jumping out at him. "Don't you have a spare?" he asks, one eyebrow high with incredulity.

Rorschach shrugs, hands deep in his pockets. "One spare. Not willing to risk a repeat performance until we _punish_..."

Dan looks at him, expectant.

"...until we bring the responsible party to justice," Rorschach amends. "For other crimes they've assumedly committed."

He shifts, twitchy, and even through the makeshift mask, Dan can tell how distraught he is over this business. And no wonder; snatch-and-run feels like enough of a violation when they only take your _wallet_.

Dan sighs, leans forward in his chair. This isn't going to end well. "Look... realistically, we're probably not going to get it back. I know you don't want to cons–"

"_Identity_, Daniel," Rorschach interrupts, as if that explains everything, justifies flying to the moon and back for it. "Have to try."

But Dan just nods, and gathers the papers, and leads them to Archie without another word on the subject.

They have people to squeeze.

*

"I ain't know nothin', man, I swear!" the sixth lead shouts, between the splintering noises of his little finger breaking in two places. "You _fuck_, no wonder they wanted to fuck with you, agh, god my _hand!_"

Rorschach pauses, cocks his head to the side. Shifts his grip to another, more useful finger.

"They?" he asks, all mild curiosity.

The man whimpers.

*

'They' are mostly not there when Nite Owl and Rorschach arrive, just one pathetic dirtsmear of a man, keeping guard over the territory. He's currently hoisted out a window, and not enjoying it.

"Better just answer his questions," Nite Owl says, from off to the side with an exaggeratedly sad shake of his head. "Being a rebellious delinquent doesn't cancel out gravity."

"I don't know what you're talking abouaaaAAAHHH _DON'T_ MAN, _PLEASE_!" he screams, as Rorschach drops his grip on the man far and fast enough that it feels like he's let go. The kid's breathing like a marathon runner, collapsed on some foreign beach. "Jesus Christ, don't... okay, okay, I'll talk, just pull me in, _please_."

"Better," Rorschach says, pulling him back in to fall in a boneless heap on the floor, and the smell of urine is strong in here now.

"Down at the docks tonight," the kid gasps out, one shaky hand to his throat where Rorschach had held him by the collar. "Twelve of them, guy in charge calls himself the Runner. That's all I know, man, I'm the rookie, that's why they left me here."

"Nite Owl?" Rorschach says, and Nite Owl grins. "To the docks?"

*

Fists hitting faces, that's familiar. Failure isn't, and the first assuages the second when they arrive too late, only four skinny gang members left on the scene and none of them exuding leadership.

'The Runner', they learn, is actually named Ernest Higgins, is barely out of high school– and does not have a very loyal following, giving all of this up under the slightest pressure. It's starting to seem less like a real gang and more like an ambitious prank.

Rorschach ties them up for the police anyway, nice and tight, tight enough that they wince and complain and whine into the night long after they're gone.

*

Public phone books are lovely things. Six Higginses in the local area and Nite Owl calls each number, playing affably and with his young, fresh-sounding voice as one of the boy's friends, asking after him. Three wrong numbers later, they have their address.

*

They wait until he comes out the back with a load of garbage to set on the alleyside curb, all pimplyfaced awkwardness and still living with his parents at nineteen, and Nite Owl has to laugh a little to cover the very real discomfort that they're stalking a teenager.

Rorschach has no such compunctions, launching himself at the boy as soon as he's out of range of his curtained windows.

"Ernest Higgins?" he growls down into the boy's pinned face; he's less terrifying without his real mask but the boy still looks about ready to piss himself. He nods, stupidly.

Rorschach shakes him by the shoulders, knocking his head against the ground. "My _face_," he snarls, deadly serious. "_Where is it._"

The boy's mouth moves, but nothing comes out.

"Speak up, son," Nite Owl says, appearing over Rorschach's shoulder like a phantom.

"...Panama?"

Dead silence, for a very long time. Then, Rorschach tilts his head. "The country?"

"Yeah," the kid says, and it's almost a cough. "It's a joke, man, you steal someone's shit and mail it somewhere crazy, I..."

Deflated, Rorschach stands up, starts walking away without a word.

The kid's still lying there, stunned. "Hey," Nite Owl says, "Don't you think we should get more specifics, here? An address or something?"

"No point," Rorschach says, aiming for the last payphone he'd seen. Probably going to report the kid for petty theft; other than the posturing, the 'gang' they've terrorized all night seems like anything but. "May as well be on the moon. Not getting it back, like you said."

He stops walking, and looks back at Nite Owl, and for just a second he can see things: Rorschach at his day job, making too little money to ever make a worldwide jaunt possible, too little time off in which to make the trip. Too tired, after a night of beating on stupid kids to try to take back the piece of him they'd stolen.

Nite Owl lets him go, and turns back to the yard, crouches in front of the kid. They talk for a while, quietly, before the police arrive, and Nite Owl leaves with everything he needs.

*

Been five days since Nite Owl and Archimedes both vanished, and Rorschach's just starting to concede that he's a little worried. He watches the newspapers, keeps an eye on the gutters and an ear out for underworld rumors. He comes up the tunnel, every night, as he has for years, hoping to hear the metallic noise of tinkering or just the sound of footsteps as Daniel gets the ship ready for the night.

Tonight, he stops in the entrance of the Owl's Nest. He's almost given up on hoping, but there Daniel is, in uniform but with his cowl back, wearing a ridiculous-looking white, wide-brimmed hat. He's at his desk, back to Rorschach, and the whole space smells like coconut and sunscreen and distant sands.

Rorschach uncurls his hands from their fists. If he is angry with Daniel's disappearance, it doesn't matter. If he was worried, it doesn't matter.

"What are you wearing?" he asks, stoic and even.

Daniel spins in the chair, grinning widely. "It's called a Panama hat," he says, and it's almost like it's hard to talk, with his mouth stretched so far. "Here, I got you one too," and he proffers it with one hand, crown down.

It's ridiculous. They're both night creatures, suited only to dark colors, and Daniel in particular only holds his own in earth tones, browns and golds. It looks horrible on him, will look worse on Rorschach, but he still takes a halting step forward and takes the hat from Daniel's eager hands.

Folded inside, black and white latex, traveled from half a world away and none the worse for wear.

Daniel seems physically incapable of wiping the smile from his face.

Rorschach slips it free, dropping the hat to the floor like the irrelevant gift-wrapping he now knows it to be. He's wearing his spare already, so he just folds it after a while, slips it protectively into a pocket. "You took the owlship–"

"To Panama, yeah," Daniel says, shoving up from his chair. He's got a bit of a sunburn, and Rorschach wonders how long he spent wandering foreign streets, armed with no language and no currency, tracking this down. "Not quite the moon, but..." he shrugs.

In Rorschach's pocket, the mask feels heavy, with a weight not attributable to gravity.

"Thought it was worth it, you know?"

Rorschach nods, and he wants to thank Daniel, to say a hundred complimentary things that he's never said to anyone, but all that comes out is, "...good partner, Daniel."

_Good friend._

*


	21. Unsinkable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captcha prompt: 'titanic 76-84'. A decade, falling and rising.

* 

It's 1976. Nite Owl convinces himself that he can handle the streets alone, and Dan convinces himself that Rorschach's wandering, drifting withdrawal is his own fault, somehow. Owning it makes it easier to deal with, because if he broke it then he can fix it and if he can fix it then he has a reason to keep trying.

On 57th street, he lays a punk kid out with a punch he can feel, stinging, all the way up to his shoulder. The anger isn't there; has long since been replaced by pity. Duty has ceded to habit and obligation. He's not as young as he used to be, and in this city and this time, disillusionment's easy to come by.

*

It's 1977. Dan stands in front of his bathroom mirror and runs fingertips over the edges of the bruise purpling his eye and cheekbone, making the skin feel taut and foreign. The kitchen is a disaster of torn newspaper and spilled coffee, and stunned silence, he realizes now, is louder and echoes longer than any tirade.

Nite Owl is gone, locked away forever, and this was his best case scenario.

*

It's 1978. Dan passes a man on the street that he swears is familiar in the way the smell of lilacs in the spring brings back whole summers and the way a half-remembered snippet of song can resurrect the dead for thirty seconds at a time. The line of the shoulders, the stance, the pessimism of his prophet's words, _something_– but then they pass each other by and are each swallowed by different crowds, and Dan loses the melody.

*

It's 1979. The box of newspaper clippings and photographs only comes down from the shelf now and then, in bouts of nostalgia that hit Dan in the lungs like pneumonia. The edges are thumbed off and smooth, and he wonders what monster got its hooks into them that night, had torn them apart and dragged them down to drown like a sea monster or a sinkhole or an iceberg. It'd been something that smelled like ash and rot and old, old regret, that he's sure of.

Nothing is unsinkable; humanity learned that lesson the hard way, and then Dan learned it again even harder, like some idiot on an island who thinks he's invented the wheel.

*

It's 1980. John Lennon's dead and greed is good and the man on the corner stares at him now, long and without shame, the way the insane homeless often do. Dan isn't ignorant to their plight, isn't unsympathetic, but when this one stares it reminds him of the fury of vengeance in motion and it's unnerving, and he wishes the man would either speak to him or go away instead of lingering, maddeningly, in between.

He thinks he might need a break from this place.

*

It's 1981. Dan is in Africa, watching birds. His heart is still in the city, even as he watches the stumbling flight of a juvenile _Otus ireneae _through night-vision field glasses.

He has spent a lot of time, he thinks, watching the untouchable and unobtainable and ultimately incomprehensible. The birds look back at him through the glasses with eyes he can read nothing in, with an alien stare that promises less. They are beautiful and furious and absolute, and he comes no closer to them than this.

*

It's 1982. Rorschach shows up unannounced, clambering up his front steps with a broken arm and a winter's worth of chill rot in his lungs and more age on his cheeks and jawline and in the lines around his mouth than Dan ever thought he'd see. Some idiotic part of him had always figured they were immortal somehow, that their ten years of living in the city's imagination had freed them from concerns like grey hair and brittle bones and an old man's quiet fade from the world.

Another part of him had just decided, resigned, that Rorschach would end up getting himself killed long before age became an issue.

He sets the bone, and in his hands it feels like he's fixing everything, like the pull and give of tendon and muscle and the hard slotting into place can repair years of willful ignorance, like the stoic set of Rorschach's mouth is just bravery in the face of Dan taking them back to a time before everything broke so easily. But Rorschach leaves, and doesn't thank him, and in the mirror that night Dan can only find an older, more tired man than he expects, lurking in the glass.

*

It's 1983. Dan is spring cleaning, and eventually comes to the pantry. There are things in the back that haven't seen the light of day for years. He pretends to not remember why he bought these things he doesn't even like - canned vegetables, canned beans, cheap sugary cereal, instant farina, instant pudding. He still comes up with an excuse (he's tired, been cleaning all day, will leave the pantry for another time) to leave them there, keeping vigil.

*

It's 1984.

Dan has read a lot of books, particularly in the last eight years. He's gotten good at picking out the twist, anticipating the moment everything shifts. A massive change of plot, lifting the characters out of their safe zone and dropping them square into a place that will either teach them who they are or kill them.

_Soon_, says the wind, as he stands in the winter evening, one hand on his doorframe and the other fingering his key.

_Soon_, says the itch in the back of his brain, driving him to check the frame around the lock, to sniff the air, to count off days by memory and consider that maybe some things don't end forever, don't sink to the bottom of the sea to never breathe air again. Maybe some things, some habits, some people and places and times, endure.

He looks at the sky, purple and gold in the twilight, run through with bloody ribbons of red, and he thinks it too, quiet:

_Soon_.

_*_


	22. Vision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captcha prompt: 'cornea 197-8'.

*

It's such a little thing – a petty mugger, a struggling victim, and Dan in his civilian clothes except that a year after Keene, they're really his only clothes, aren't they?  
  
It's easy to forget.  
  
The mugger aims a fist for his ribs, another for his face, and Dan deflects the lower shot with habitual priorities in place – because broken ribs are a lot more risky than a broken nose, and everything else on his face is protected–  
  
His glasses snap, the edge of one lens scraping his eye painfully. It's a shock, on a lower level than thinking: his whole body had expected his goggles to be there, but they've been hung up in the basement for a year. It all snaps into focus then, one hand going to his face against the sudden spark of pain; there is always time and place, and his has passed.  
  
The mugger takes off, wallet in hand, and Dan helps the kid to his feet, even peels a twenty from his own billfold to replace the boy's bus fare home.   
  
At his feet, the twisted remains of his glasses. The kid asks if he'll be okay without them.  
  
_Fine,_ he says; he's done without before, and the throbbing pain has him more worried than the thought of wandering blindly into traffic.   
  
*  
  
"Just a scratched cornea," his doctor says later that day, shining a light into his dilated eye, the chemical drops still stinging. "It'll heal on its own."  
  
The light flicks off and Dan sits there for a moment, looking but not looking at the fuzzy poster on the wall near him; major bones of the arm and hand, and he can point out all the places he's broken them over the years, pick out the ones he's set himself through the heavy obfuscation of leather sleeve.   
  
He thinks about a body's habits that refuse to die quietly when asked to, and about the light of fear in the mugger's eyes in the single moment he'd held the upper hand today, and about the way he still scans the fire escapes and alley walls for a silhouetted profile in hat and coat, like he's looking for someone to meet under their eaves and within their shadows.  
  
"You'll be seeing clearly again in no time," the doctor says, and Dan imagines the reflection of moonlight on blades and on blood, on his goggles, shining and shining.  
  
*


End file.
